eon didn't do that; he knew her too well. Only he didn't bother much
about what she was, not being either a priest or a scientific chemist,
but a man in love.

'By the way,' said Katherine, 'are you and Arthur going to get married?'

Jane told her in May or June.

Katherine, who was lighting a cigarette, looked at Jane without smiling.
The flame of the match shone into her face, and it was white and cold
and quiet.

'She doesn't think I'm good enough for Arthur,' Jane thought. And anyhow,
K didn't, Jane knew, think much of marriage at all. Most women, if you
said you were going to get married, assumed it was a good thing. They
caught hold of you and kissed you. If you were a man, other men slapped
you on the back, or shook hands or something. They all thought, or
pretended to think, it was a fine thing you were doing. They didn't
really think so always. Behind their eyes you could often see them
thinking other things about it--wondering if you would like it, or why
you chose that one, and if it was because you preferred him or her to any
one else or because you couldn't get any one else. Or they would be
pitying you for stopping being a bachelor or spinster and having to grow
up and settle down and support a wife or manage servants and babies. But
all that was behind; they didn't show it; they would say, 'Good for you,
old thing,' and kiss you or shake your hand.

Katherine did neither to Jane. She hadn't when it was Oliver Hobart,
because she hadn't thought it a suitable marriage. She didn't, now it was
Arthur Gideon, perhaps for the same reason. She didn't talk about it. She
talked about something else.

CHAPTER II

ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED

1

The fine weather ended. Early October had been warm, full of golden
light, with clear, still evenings. Later the wind blustered, and it was
cold. Sometimes Jane felt sick; that was the baby. But not often. She
went about all right, and she was writing--journalism and a novel. She
thought she would perhaps send it in for a prize novel competition in the
spring, only she felt no certainty of pleasing the three judges, all so
very dissimilar. Jane's work was a novel about a girl at school and
college and thereafter. Perhaps it would be the first of a trilogy;
perhaps it would not. The important thing was that it should be well
reviewed. How did one work that? You could never tell. Some things were
well reviewed, others weren't. Partly luck it was, thought Jane. Nov